Steven and Chelsea

How We Met

Rewind to summer 2011 and a guys night out to a Lil Wayne concert in Hartford, CT. I glanced over my shoulder and noticed my best friend Mike talking to the most beautiful girl I have ever seen. Come to find out Mike has a beautiful cousin he failed to mention over the past years of our friendship. After introductions we enjoyed the entire concert together and could not keep our eyes off one and another. Safe to say the guys night was over! On the way out she loved a t-shirt a vendor was selling so of course I bought it for her to score extra brownie points and also got to drive her home that night. Little did I know that night was the start of something great.

Summer came to an end and we both went back to college she was a junior at Iona College in New York and I was a senior at the University of New Haven in Connecticut. We kept in touch being friends for about a year until it was her senior where we took our friendship and started getting more serious. I came to her school one night to celebrate my birthday and walked into a candlelight dinner with chicken parmigiana, pasta and a bottle of red wine sitting on the table. To end the night she made me a cake that looked exactly like a sushi roll. My birthday night with her was too perfect, I had to make this girl officially mine. So I asked her to be my girl friend and from that day it has been the best decision I have ever made!

How He Asked

For the past year I have been working on a project, to give my beautiful fiancé Chelsea Marie an amazing engagement gift, so I came up with “The Perfect Proposal”. My vision was to capture every moment and step that led up to the proposal. Back in September of 2016 I wanted to give something to her that she can have forever and also something that we can also look back on together. So for an entire year I documented on video everything that went on prior to the proposal day.

Here’s how it went down: Step 1 was figuring out the perfect ring for Chelsea and I knew this was not going to be easy since for the past two years she’s has been sending me ring photos. But after numerous of research and advice I was able to design the most perfect custom ring for her.

Step 2 was figuring out how to ask her father for his blessing. The best way to a mans heart is through his stomach so I had a plan. I knew he was obsessed with pizza but not just any pizza, Frank Pepes pizza. So I arranged for us to shoot a video in the pizza place which he thought was just for a commercial for my good friend and camera man Jeff Lazzara. We made pies together and sat down to enjoy them. He said yes, was happy and most importantly left on a full stomach! Step 3: On the day of the proposal I had Chelsea thinking we were doing a photo shoot and video for the Newport Marriot in Newport Rhode Island once again with our close friend and videographer Jeff Lazara who in the past has done work with the hotel.

As we enjoyed the day in our favorite city we ended the night with a sunset sail out into the ocean where we danced to our favorite song and then I dropped to one knee to ask my best friend to marry me! This past August we had our engagement party with all of our friends and family where I rented a large projector screen and presented the video which she still had no idea about!